Environmental law scholar Sarah Bronin’s recommendation that states take a more active role in mandating green building design was the focus of a panel discussion at Vanderbilt Law School on April 1 that included Bronin, who is an associate law professor at the University of Connecticut; Lavea Brachman, co-director of the Greater Ohio Policy Center and a non-resident fellow of the Brookings Institution; and Bert Mathews, president of the Mathews Company, a local commercial development firm.
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The discussion was moderated by Linda Breggin, senior attorney with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), an environmental policy organization based in Washington, D.C., and was held in conjunction with a conference addressing environmental law and policy sponsored by ELI and the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR), a compendium of the best scholarly articles focusing on environmental law produced each year by ELI and Vanderbilt Law School. Environmental law expert Michael Vandenbergh, who co-directs Vanderbilt’s Regulatory Program and serves as faculty advisor to the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, worked with Breggin and the ELPAR staff to organize the conference.
In her article, “The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, and the States” (93 Minnesota Law Review 231), Bronin advances what she terms the “somewhat controversial” argument that states should take a more active role in regulating local land use, and in particular in encouraging green and sustainable design. “Green building is slowly transforming real estate development across the United States, bolstered by mounting evidence that conventional construction techniques substantially and unnecessarily damage the environment,” Bronin asserts in her article. Over the next 20 years, she predicts, 75 percent of buildings will represent either new or replacement construction. Because local building codes vary widely, and many create logistical barriers to green building and sustainable design, while the need for energy efficient, sustainable design is immediate, Bronin proposes that states step in to regulate construction to speed the establishment of updated building codes that promote sustainable design.
In her response to Bronin’s presentation, Brachman, whose organization addresses policies regarding preservation as well as sustainable design, proposed packaging green building requirements with other reforms designed to make local municipalities more competitive as they seek to attract and retain businesses.
Mathews, who develops and manages commercial properties, acknowledged that outdated building codes make implementing sustainable design difficult, but believes “the local environment is the best place to carry out these ideas.” Rather than attempting to establish state regulations addressing construction, Mathews proposed that state governments “lead by example” by instituting and adhering to green requirements for new state buildings. He also noted that the “balance between historic preservation and green building codes is a very rough spot” that policymakers in both groups need to work together to address.
The April 1 conference at Vanderbilt is one of two conferences convened by ELPAR. Four additional articles will be presented at a second conference hosted by the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., on Friday, April 16, 2010, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Articles presented at that conference will include:
- "Super Wicked Problems and Climate Change: Restraining the Present to Liberate the Future," by Richard Lazarus (94 Cornell Law Review 1153)
- "Ratifying Kyoto at the Local Level: Sovereigntism, Federalism, and Translocal Organizations of Government Actors (TOGAS)," by Judith Resnik, Joshua Civin & Joseph Frueh (50 Arizona Law Review 709)
- "U.S. Nuclear Waste Law and Policy: Fixing a Bankrupt System," by Richard B. Stewart (17 NYU Environmental Law Journal 783)
- "Rethinking the ESA to Reflect Human Dominion over Nature," by Katrina Miriam Wyman (7 NYU Environmental Law Journal 490)